thegoodanarchist: <Petrosianic: ... That's why in pro wrestling they have such a wealth of ways for a Face to lose without losing cleanly. Outside interference, a distraction, some kind of deus ex machina. Hulk Hogan lost his first title after 4 years, because the bad guys bribed the referee's twin brother, and had him switch places just before the match.>

You made a comparison with pro wrestling? (wrasslin') You know that it's choreographed, right?

RookFile: Sure. I think it's fine over the board too. In this game Anderssen essentially played the Sicilian Kan with an extra move. You have to be realistic in your expectations, i.e. white has no right to claim an objective adventage, but it may help you get the type of game you want.

Once: <Penguincw: Would anyone recommend playing 1.a3 in a blitz game (to try to catch your opponent off guard)?>

For occasional surprise value, why not? Treat it as if you were playing Black with an extra a3 thrown in.

You would be giving away the slight advantage that white gets with his first move, but as compensation your opponent may have to think a bit more about whether his white openings still work so well if you have sneaked an extra move in.

Might also be good against an aggressive opponent if you intend to play a closed or hypermodern game.

Objectively, it's not as good as a more classical white opening, but OTB it might have some pragmatic benefits.

The Kings Domain: Excellent positional play by Anderssen at the start of the game, his pieces were poised for good attacks on both black's kingside and queenside. If his games were as sound as this throughout the match he may have won it.

john barleycorn: Is it not *amazing* (regards to <morfishine>) that every amateur gets told that this 1.a3 hands over the initiative with occupation of the center etc. pp to the opponent and one of the greatest player teaching the world the importance of development is not able to convert it into something tangible?

I mean with computers starting with Genius2 or Fritz3 we know that all this is not that easy and some 60-80 % of what was learned can be from the expert teachers and analysts can be disposed properly.

Chess like music does not only make you happy but it also shows that we almost always start at the beginning (Grade1)

saturn2: Morphys exchanges on move 8 and 14 dont seem to be the best choices. 8...NxN is an exchange of a piece that has moved twice for one that has moved once. I would not haved expected Morphy to do that in the opening. 14...BxN gives up the bishop pair. I would have rather kept the white squared bishop. For NxBd6 was no real threat because this black squared bishop was obstructed by several pawns.

Calli: The Deutsche Schachzeitung has a slightly different move order at move 67. They have 67.Kf3 Rd1 68.
Ke4 Re1+ 69.Kf5 Rd1 70.Be6 Rd4 71.Ke5 Rd1 72.f5 Rh1 73.f6+ Kxh7 74.
Kd6 Ra1 75.Ke7 Ra7+ 76.Bd7 resigns. Thus the game ends one move earlier on CG. Anderssen, by the way, was one of the editors of DS. Are there other differing scores of this game?

spazzky: <mruknowwho> I guess Anderssen didn't want to give Morphy much space to work with. That's what I gather from the fact that he retreated his bishop on the 20th move rather than capture the pawn on f5.

keypusher: One thing that stands out in this game is how circumspect Anderssen is. He'd already gotten two great positions with this opening but had wound up with only a loss and a draw to show for it. Here he was determined to give Morphy no scope for complications, passing up opportunities like 31.c5. Morphy almost saved the ending anyway...

Macon A Shibut gives 41.Bf8 an exclamation point, writing <Surely Morphy regretted ever sending his rook down that blind alley on the kingside! Black is almost out of moves.><Paul Morphy and the Evolution of Chess Theory> at 46.

But it looks like 41.d5 is stronger. The idea is 41....cxd5 42.Bb5! Nd6 43.Rxc7 Nxb5 44.Rb7 and the knight has nowhere to go. 44....d4!? 45.exd4! (45.Rxb5 d3 is a little harder for White) 45....Nxd4 46.Bc3 turns out to be just another way to lose a piece. And if something like 41....h5, then 42.d6! Bxd6 43.Bc3+ Kg5 44.Bf7 wins the exchange and eventually the game.

Shibut, by the way, takes 11 pages of his book to annotate this battle, nearly half of those pages on the complicated ending arising after move 54. As with Lasker vs Ed. Lasker, 1924, it feels like the whole world of chess somehow got packed into a single game.

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